THE LEVEL AND THE PLUMB

SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.III June, 1925
No.6

by: Unknown

Before you could become a Fellowcraft it was demanded of
you that you become proficient in the work of the First Degree; that you learn
"by heart" a certain portion of the Ritual, and make yourself competent to
"stand and deliver" it on occasion.

Such a memorization is the sole survival of that ancient
custom of Operative Masonry of demanding from the Apprentice, who had served the
legal time (usually seven years), a Master's Piece; and example of ability in
Masonry by which his fellows could judge whether or no he had made good use of
his time and was fit to be "passed" from the state of being but an Apprentice,
to that of being a Fellow (or companion) of the Craft.

Alas, that our modern Master's Piece is so modest in its
required effort! For it takes no one very long, nor does it make much of a
drain upon time or patience, to "learn the words" by heart. Lucky is he
whose instructor is not content with teaching him just the words and their
order, but who insists upon in-structing as to their meaning and their history.

The modern Fellowcraft Degree is, as a whole,
emblematical of manhood; to attain is to be grown up, Masonically speaking.
As the entered Apprentice Degree speaks of birth and babyhood, of first
beginnings and first principles, so does the degree of Fellowcraft speak of
growth, of strength and of virility to those who have inward and spiritual ears
with which to hear. No thoughtful man can avoid the impression that this
degree is an attempt to emphasize the vital need of knowledge; to encourage
study and research, to bring out the beauty of wisdom. It is true that the
liberal education which the degree was once sup-posed to outline and encourage
is no longer either liberal or educational in fact; but it is still symbolical
of all that a good Mason should learn.

To understand the degree and what it attempts to do, one
must have some knowledge of its history, and of William Preston, who brought the
vigor of a trained mind to bear upon the often hasty and ill considered lectures
with which it progenitors were given. He turned these lectures into the
elaborate exposition of the five senses, the seven liberal arts and sciences
which we now have. In Preston's day such an exposition of knowledge was
all inclusive; it is not Preston's fault that he knew nothing of science as we
know it; that he knew nothing of medicine or biology or archeology or criticism,
or electricity or astronomy in the modern sense. There are those who would
substitute for the Prestonian Lectures and the Prestonian-Webb form of the
degree, wholly modern exposition of the obtaining of knowledge. With such
as these we have nothing to do; our Fellowcraft Degree is hallowed with age, and
it is a lovely thing to do as have all those good brothers and fellows who have
gone this way before us. But there is nothing to prevent us from reading
the degrees symbolically. We do not have to accept it as literal, any more
than we have to accept the first verse of the seventh chapter of Revelations:

"And after these things I saw four Angels standing on the
four corners of the earth . . ."

as proof that the earth is square and not round. We
can consider the meaning of the degree, and govern ourselves accordingly.
And if we do so, we will start now, at once, to make ourselves earnest students
not only of Masonic knowledge, but of knowledge in general. For of
knowledge and its obtaining, this degree is most certainly a teacher; from the
time of entry through the West Gate until the finish of the lecture, the entered
Apprentice in the process of being "passed" is instructed, taught, given
knowledge and urged that only by knowledge can he hope to obtain complete growth
and the final glory of Masonry and of life, the Sublime degree of Master Mason.

The most outstanding symbol in the degree of Fellowcraft
is the Flight of Winding Stairs. In the Book of Kings we find;

"They Went up With Winding Stairs into the Middle
Chamber." We go up "with winding stairs" into "The Middle Chamber of King
Solomon's Temple." Also we travel up a winding stairs of life, and arrive,
if we climb steadfastly, at the middle chamber of existence, which is removed
from birth, babyhood and youth by the steps of knowledge and experience, but
which is not so high above the ground that we are not as yet of the earth,
earthy; not so high that we can justifiably regard it as more than a Stepping
Off Place from which we may, perhaps, ascend to the Sanctum Sanctorum; that Holy
of Holies, in which our troubled spirits find rest, our ignorance finds
knowledge, and our eyes see God.

There is a symbolism in the fact that the stairway
"Winds." A straight stairway is not as easy to climb as a winding one, which,
because of the fact that it does wind, ascends by easier stages than one which
climbs as a ladder. But, also, a straight stair has the goal in sight
constantly, and while it may be more difficult in the effort and strength
required, it is easier because one can see where one is going. There is no
faith needed in climbing a ladder; one can visualize the top and have its
inspiration constantly before one as one rises rung after rung.

But the winding stairway is one which tries a man's soul.
He must "Believe," or he cannot reach the top. Nothing is clear before him
but the next step. He must take it on faith that there is a top, that if
he but climb long enough he will, indeed, reach a middle chamber, a goal, a
place of light. In such a way are the Winding Stairs and the Middle
Chamber symbols of life and manhood. No man knows what he will become; as
a boy he may have a goal, but many reach other Middle Chambers than those they
visualized as they started the ascent. No man knows whether he will ever
climb all the stairs; the Angel of Death may stand but around the corner on the
next step. Yet, in spite of a lack of knowledge of what is at the top of
the stairs, in spite of the fact that a Flaming Sword may bar his ascent, man
climbs. He climbs in faith that there is a goal and that he shall reach
it; and no good Mason doubts but that for those who never see the glory of the
Middle Chamber in this life, a lamp is set that they may see still farther in
another, better one.

We are taught that we should use that which God gave us,
the five senses, to climb the remaining seven steps of the stairway, which are
the seven liberal arts and sciences. Again we must remember that William
Preston, who put such a practical interpre-tation upon these steps, lived in an
age when these did indeed represent all of knowledge. But we must not
refuse to grow because the ritual has not grown with modern discovery.
When we rise by Grammar and Rhetoric, we must consider that they mean not only
language but all methods of communication. The step of logic means a
knowledge not only of all methods of reasoning, but of all reasoning which
logicians have accomplished. When we ascend by Arithmetic and Geometry, we
must visualize all science; since science is but measurement, and all
measurement in the true mathematical sense, it requires no great stretch of the
imagination to read into these two steps all that science may teach.
The step denominated Music means not only sweet and harmonious sounds, but all
beauty; poetry, art, nature, loveli-ness of whatever kind. Not to
familiarize himself with the beauty which nature provides is to be, by so much,
less a man; to stunt, by so much, a striving soul. As for the seventh step
of astronomy, surely it means not only the study of the solar system and the
stars, as it did in William Preston;s day, but also the study of all that is
beyond the earth; of spirit and the world of spirit, of ethics, philosophy, the
abstract . . .of deity.

Preston builded better than he knew; his seven steps are
both logical in arrangement and suggestive in their order; the true Fellowcraft
will see in them a guide to the making of a man rich in mind and spirit, by
which, and only by which riches, can the truest brotherhood be obtained and
practiced.

The Fellowcraft Degree is one of action. Recall, if
you will, where you wore your Cable-Tow; but think not that it confines action;
it urges it. A great authority has stated that the words come from the
Hebrew, and mean, effect "his pledge." Here, then "His Pledge" is for
action, for a doing, a girding up, an effort to be made. What effort?
To climb, to rise! How? By the use of the five senses to take in and
make Knowledge a part of the mind and heart. What Knowledge? All
Knowledge!

Conceived thus, the Fellowcraft Degree, from being a mere
ceremony, a stepping stone from the Apprentice Degree to that of the Master,
becomes something sublime; it is emblematic of the struggle of life, not
materially, but spiritually, and it is a symbol with high hope and encouragement
constantly held forth. There "is" a Middle Chamber; the steps "do" lead
somewhere; man "can" climb them if he will. Not for the drone, the
laggard, the journeyer by the easy paths upon the level, but for the fighter,
the adventurer, the man with courage. for that which is not worth working for
and fighting for is not worth having. It is no easy journey that we make
through life, and it is no easy journey that we make through the mazes of this
degree. In its Middle Chamber lecture are profound philosophies, deep
truths, great facts concealed. He who is a true Fellowcraft will study
these for himself; he will not be content with the Prestonian lecture as an end;
it will be to him but a means.

For thousands of years men saw the rainbow and the best
they could do was call it a promise of God. So, indeed, it may be to us
all, but it is also a manifestation of beauty in nature, it is caused by the
operation of well-understood laws, and when artifi-cially produced in the
spectroscope, it is the key with which we unlocked the mysteries of the heavens.
For as long as man has lived upon this earth the lightning has flashed and the
thunder roared to no end but terror and beauty. In the last few hundred
years man has read the first part of the mysterious story of electricity and
taken for himself the power God put in nature. Had man been content merely
with what he saw and heard he would still be as ignorant as the beasts of the
field.

So should the mysteries of the Fellowcraft be to you, my
brother. It is but a great symbol, given in one evening, of all that a man
may make of his life. It is a lamp to guide your feet; not, as Preston
would have had it, both the feet and the path. Preston and his brethren
were Speculative Masons, indeed, but we are enlightened as he never was; so that
if we fail to use the light he lit, or see by its radiance a greater Stairway
and a higher climb than ever he visualized, the fault is within us, and not in
our opportunity.

There are thousands who pass through this degree who see
in it only a ceremony, just as there are thousands who see in a rainbow only the
color in the sky, thousands who see a lightening flash only as a portent of
danger. Be you not one of these! Do you see the Winding Star an
invitation, an urge to climb, to learn, to know, to reach that Middle Chamber of
your life from which you can look back on an effort well made, a life well
spent, a goal well won; and then forward . . . to what awaits you in the final
degree? For the Sublime Degree of Master Mason, to which you aspire and
which one day may be granted you, is a symb-ol, too . . . perhaps the greatest
symbol man has ever made for himself to point a way up a yet greater Winding
Stair to a more vaulted Upmost Chamber, where the real Master Mason, raised from
a Fellowcraft, may reach up as a little child, and touch the hand of God!